Magic and the Supernatural - Lancaster University

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Popular Necromancy
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In Season One and many later stand-alone episodes, 1 Supernatural also
employs this narrative structure with brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared
Padalecki and Jensen Ackles), travelling around small-town America, ‘saving
people, hunting things.’ As creator, Eric Kripke states,
For us the sell has always been, ‘If you want to understand the
show, the show is about two guys with chainsaws in their
trunk, fighting monsters.’ 2
The series is divided into ‘stand-alone’ and ‘mythology’ episodes, with the
mythology providing the meta-narrative that links the series’ five seasons. While
by Season Five, the mythology runs parallel to the ‘Book of Revelations,’ in
Season One it is relatively simple: the boys’ father has disappeared while hunting a
creature dubbed the Yellow-eyed Demon, and the boys set out on a quest to find
their father. This initial chapter in the meta-narrative follows much the same
structure as that of the stand-alone episodes, with Sam and Dean learning what
they can about the Yellow-eyed Demon in order to track him down. In this way,
early episodes of Supernatural target paranormal investigation viewers, adhering to
the genre’s traditional narrative structure: a strategy that has proven hugely
successful, with the series attracting a large and active fan base.
3. True Blood and the Vampire Romance
Based on Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mystery novels, True Blood has
enjoyed similar success, pitching itself as a vampire romance. Since the release of
the Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga in 2006, the vampire romance has spiked in
popularity, resulting in a smattering of similar series, including Richelle Mead’s
Vampire Academy, Melissa De La Cruz’s Blue Bloods, P. C. and Kristen Cast’s
House of Night, Claudia Gray’s Evernight, Alyson Noel’s The Immortals, Lili St.
Crow’s Strange Angels, and television series, such as The Vampire Diaries,
flooding the Young Adult market.
These narratives take the traditional romantic love formula and cast the vampire
in the role of the hero, 3 using his conflicted and (supposedly) monstrous
supernatural nature to heighten romantic tension and, forgive the pun, raise the
stakes in his relationship with the heroine.
Though essentially a crime narrative, the romance between vampire, Bill
Compton (Stephen Moyer), and telepathic waitress, Sookie Stackhouse (Anna
Paquin) has seen True Blood branded as ‘Twilight for adults.’ It is also through this
romantic sub-plot that the series promotes itself, with advertising materials, such as
posters, merchandise and the series’ official websites 4 largely featuring suggestive
images of Bill and Sookie. Consequently, given the vampire romance’s current
overwhelming popularity, it is not surprising that True Blood, in following this